_Briar and bramble, Don't be so dense. You scratch and you scramble Like things without sense. Why grudge me a ramble? You can't want my hose, White-coated bramble, Pink briar-rose._ _Bramble and briar, Leave me alone. Cling to the friar, Make him your own. Kiss him, the liar Who brought us all here, Gentle sweet-briar, Bramble my dear._ Thus through the months of slapping rain we plunged into the Hungarian plain, And paid its mounted bowmen dear for wretched stocks of fruit and grain, Or shelter in a reed-built town. They asked for hostages. We gave Our leaders to these dirty-brown mongrels, who brought us to the Save With loss. My tutor's Damocles perhaps had lived in times like these; For whoso straggled from the main body was never seen again. Ere this my rhyme had spread, and swelled into a marching-song. I blushed To witness how the spearmen held their sides with laughter, as they yelled "Bramble and briar." 'Twas the first faint mutiny. These men of Gaul Bantered the sterner pilgrims so I wondered why they came at all. Yea, often now that I am old and hear how zealous scribes have told The zeal that made the first crusade, well--history is eaten cold. My lord could think of nothing but the lady who had bidden him cut His way to her by such detours. Aye, this was true romance--the slut. We called her secretly The Burr--whereof was plenty in our beds-- For night by night he crooned of her, nor even named the Sepulchre: _I waited, and the hours were loth to close. They scarcely stirred till evening leapt to sight Between the shadows that all substance throws As bridges for its passage to the night._ _You never came. Life dozes at the touch Of those not wholly resolute to live, Who let themselves mistrust her overmuch To take the only thing she has to give._ Amid the rags there caracoled fop-penitents whose panders lolled With human baggage in the rear, and hound and hawk. So chaos rolled Adown the Danube rolling east. Beyond Semlin the pinewoods filled With Celt and Saxon, man and beast inspired to leave the west untilled.